Peer2ref: a peer-reviewer finding web tool that uses author disambiguation

Miguel A Andrade-Navarro,Gareth A Palidwor,Carol Perez-Iratxeta

doi:10.1186/1756-0381-5-14

Miguel A Andrade-Navarro, Gareth A Palidwor + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1756-0381-5-14

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Abstract

BackgroundReviewer and editor selection for peer review is getting harder for authors and publishers due to the specialization onto narrower areas of research carried by the progressive growth of the body of knowledge. Examination of the literature facilitates finding appropriate reviewers but is time consuming and complicated by author name ambiguities.ResultsWe have developed a method called peer2ref to support authors and editors in selecting suitable reviewers for scientific manuscripts. Peer2ref works from a text input, usually the abstract of the manuscript, from which important concepts are extracted as keywords using a fuzzy binary relations approach. The keywords are searched on indexed profiles of words constructed from the bibliography attributed to authors in MEDLINE. The names of these scientists have been previously disambiguated by coauthors identified across the whole MEDLINE. The methods have been implemented in a web server that automatically suggests experts for peer-review among scientists that have authored manuscripts published during the last decade in more than 3,800 journals indexed in MEDLINE.Conclusionpeer2ref web server is publicly available at http://www.ogic.ca/projects/peer2ref/.

Highlights

Reviewer and editor selection for peer review is getting harder for authors and publishers due to the specialization onto narrower areas of research carried by the progressive growth of the body of knowledge
Effective expert selection for anonymous peer review is a critical step in the process of publishing research in referred scientific journals, which remains the most important platform for the dissemination of scientific knowledge
Demand for peer review is increasing as the number of researchers, journals and publications increases

Summary

Introduction

Reviewer and editor selection for peer review is getting harder for authors and publishers due to the specialization onto narrower areas of research carried by the progressive growth of the body of knowledge. Effective expert selection for anonymous peer review is a critical step in the process of publishing research in referred scientific journals, which remains the most important platform for the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Demand for peer review is increasing as the number of researchers, journals and publications increases. Upon successful submission of a manuscript for publication in a journal, editors attempt to quickly identify suitable reviewers, sometimes with the assistance of authors who may have been prompted to provide several suggestions. This procedure demands a fair knowledge of the experts in the manuscript’s area of knowledge from both authors and editors.

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